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KRTY-FM Los Gatos has been sold

Going back to the topic regarding Country music format.

I wonder if KRTY will live on another station? Since KBAY, KEZR, and KUFX are perfectly fine with their music. I doubt any of the bay area stations will cover Country music again. Also, I don't think a translator will cover the San Jose proper area.

As for ethnic (Non English language format) and non commercial stations on the commercial band in San Jose area.
KSJO - 92.3 South Asian Music/Program (Mostly Hindi)
KXZM - 93.7 Regional Mexican
KRTY - 95.3 Currently Country soon to be an Air-1 Station Worship Music
KSQQ - 96.1 Portuguese and Mandarin Chinese
KJLV - 97.7 Contemporary Christian - Klove (which I can hear on 107.3 fm )
KSQL - 99.1 Regional Mexican
KBRG - 100.3 Spanish AC
KXSC - 104.9 Classical (KDFC Simulcast)
KVVF - 105.7 Spanish CHR
 
I wonder if KRTY will live on another station?

Here's what KRTY GM Nate Deacon said about that in the article I posted:

GM Nate Deaton tells Country Aircheck. "I'd be surprised if someone didn't take an underperforming FM signal in the market and put Country on it, and if another company wants our brand and people, we have the opportunity to tell listeners where they can find us."

So it's obvious they don't have a plan yet, but they have assets to share with someone who does. They're also talking about some kind of online station, although that's hardly the same thing.
 
Alpha is at its cap. They already have 5 FMs in the San Francisco Market which is what would be counted for ownership. KKDV, KKIQ, KUIC, KBAY and KEZR. San Jose is a subset of San Francisco.

Going back to the topic regarding Country music format.

I wonder if KRTY will live on another station? Since KBAY, KEZR, and KUFX are perfectly fine with their music. I doubt any of the bay area stations will cover Country music again. Also, I don't think a translator will cover the San Jose proper area.

As for ethnic (Non English language format) and non commercial stations on the commercial band in San Jose area.
KSJO - 92.3 South Asian Music/Program (Mostly Hindi)
KXZM - 93.7 Regional Mexican
KRTY - 95.3 Currently Country soon to be an Air-1 Station Worship Music
KSQQ - 96.1 Portuguese and Mandarin Chinese
KJLV - 97.7 Contemporary Christian - Klove (which I can hear on 107.3 FM )
KSQL - 99.1 Regional Mexican
KBRG - 100.3 Spanish AC
KXSC - 104.9 Classical (KDFC Simulcast)
KVVF - 105.7 Spanish CHR
FM radio in some major markets is becoming the new AM radio.In NYC we lost several music FMers to Relgious operators.Young people are not listening to OTA radio anymore.As for Country radio,in Brooklyn,NY we only have a weak 1310 daytime signal from the Jersey Shore since a pirate blocks country 106.3's Jersey shore signal.We have lots of pirates here.
 
However Santa Rosa is technically part of the Redwood Empire region. Not so sure how that fits with San Francisco or San Jose proper as the thread is going here.
Santa Rosa is part of the San Francisco Metro Survey Area.
 
San Francisco Bay area consists of 9 counties (San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Sonoma, Solano, Napa, Marin, Alameda, and Contra Costa). The geographical goes from Gilroy from the southend to Healdsburg or Cloverdale in the north end. Santa Rosa is part of the San Francisco bay area. Besides there's a regional government MTA that covers the 9 bay area counties.

The real issue is that those 9 counties are defined by Nielsen criteria as being the Metro Survey Area which does not have to be the same as government definitions such as the Metropolitan Statistical Area definition of the Census and the OMB. Radio metros can change based on actual listening levels and every year Nielsen issues a list of markets that add or lose counties.
 
San Francisco Bay area consists of 9 counties (San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Sonoma, Solano, Napa, Marin, Alameda, and Contra Costa). The geographical goes from Gilroy from the southend to Healdsburg or Cloverdale in the north end.

The whole south bay area is more conducive to country music than the city itself. That's why KRTY did so well in the ratings, while The Wolf did not. The one place that was very popular for country concerts, and worked a lot with KRTY was the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View:

 
As I recall, 95.7 The Wolf earned decent ratings for 18 months or so. Then, there was a PD change, that was accompanied by programming changes, and the ratings then cratered.

The 1.8 share credited to KRTY looks a lot better than KGMZ's 0.8 at the moment. Just sayin'. :)

I'd like to see 106.5 go country personally. There is a glut of AC and Hot AC music on the local dial. The thing is - 106.5 has signal issues in parts of the east bay (interference from Sacramento).

Might Bonneville give Country another try? They fared poorly with 95.7 The Bear years ago. Country on 98.5 would be an interesting proposition, although losing rock / classic rock on a South Bay blowtorch would be another bitter pill.

97.7 would've been a great signal for a Country format if it weren't already in EMF hands.
 
Might Bonneville give Country another try? They fared poorly with 95.7 The Bear years ago.

That's a good question. The format fits their style very well. They own KNCI in Sacramento. KUFX is their weakest link, partly because it's a San Jose license. That fact alone makes it an interesting possibility, since it's based in the same area as KRTY. It's possible Nate Deaton has given them a call to show them the figures.
 
What about iHeart flipping 103.7 to Country and then hiring KRTY's entire airstaff. HMMM!
 
What about iHeart flipping 103.7 to Country and then hiring KRTY's entire airstaff. HMMM!
Going all-local is soooo last millennium. The typical iHeart country station runs Bobby Bones in the morning, more syndication overnights, and jocks voicetracking for multiple stations the rest of the time. No way iHeart (or anyone else) is going to hire an entire air staff to do country in a market like San Francisco.
 
Here is another idea...What about Eagle Communications buying a station in San Jose and flipping it to Country. My family would hate to see this format leave the Bay.
 
Here is another idea...What about Eagle Communications buying a station in San Jose and flipping it to Country. My family would hate to see this format leave the Bay.
Honestly, I'm not sure if Univision will sell 105.7, as subpar as the ratings are.

Not sure what other signal is viable. 92.3 is out of the question. 94.5, 98.5, and 106.5 aren't very likely to be for sale. USC is doing well with 104.9. 96.1? I dunno, but I'm not keen that they are desperate to sell.
 
How is that possible? San Francisco is over 50 miles from San Jose and the higher power stations are supposed to be Class B. One shouldn't be able to reach the other with even 60dbu! A full Class B station goes just over 20 miles!

Do you have any thoughts as to how a city of over a million people can be a part of a market, where the core city has a population of over 200,000 fewer than that?
Yeah. It wasn’t that way when the markets were drawn up. 50 years ago, San Jose was 400,000 to SF’s 715,000.

Should it have been updated to reflect changes? Yes.
 
Yeah. It wasn’t that way when the markets were drawn up. 50 years ago, San Jose was 400,000 to SF’s 715,000.

Should it have been updated to reflect changes? Yes.
The real issue here is that the "lowest common denominator" for Arbtron and Nielson is the county. Cities and townships and the like are not considered in market definition.

Then, each county is looked at as to where the majority of listening comes from. If County A is adjacent to a "central city" and the majority of listening is to stations that are home to that central zone... and... there is a majority percentage of out of county commuting to areas in that central zone, then the county is attributed to the market that has those qualities of listening and commuting.

As conditions change, counties can come or go.

In the case of San Jose and its county area, the overwhelming percentage of radio listening is to San Francisco "core zone" stations, meaning those stations licensed to San Francisco, San Mateo, Contra Costa, Marin, and Alameda counties. The city of license is not considered at all as distinctions, sample balancing and the like are mostly done on the county level (except for the HDMA and HDBA areas within counties used to insure ethnic inclusion accuracy).

In other counteis, like Sonoma, Napa, Solano, Santa Clara the local listening and commute patterns are analyzed annually and the market can be adjusted.

San Jose would never be a separate market as it is economically tied to San Francisco and radio listening has been tied to SF stations since the 1920s. Like many adjacent-to-big-market places such as Long Island, the good facilities were taken by the big city area communities early on, and there is not a huge advertiser demand for such markets to be considered separately.

Nielsen can give subscribers area breakouts, and in some cases there are embedded markets inside the bigger ones and small coverage suburban stations sometimes support that service.

But the deciding factors are, first, who uses ratings for ad buying and, second, what geographic breaks are needed by them. Ratings areas, unlike a census, are not interested in geopolitical factors like towns and cities. Ratings are intended solely to determine the appropriate pricing for each station's spots.
 
How is that possible? San Francisco is over 50 miles from San Jose and the higher power stations are supposed to be Class B. One shouldn't be able to reach the other with even 60dbu! A full Class B station goes just over 20 miles!
But the vast majority of listening in San Jose is to stations in the central counties around San Francisco.
Do you have any thoughts as to how a city of over a million people can be a part of a market, where the core city has a population of over 200,000 fewer than that?
Arbitron and Nielsen don't / didn't rate cities and towns. They rate counties and markets. And Santa Clara County listening goes, in its majority, to stations outside that county. So, for radio, there is no separate market.

However, Nielsen does produce a fully proportional San Jose embedded market book, based on Santa Clara County alone. The same data is part of the SF book, too.

There used to be an Orange County embedded market book in LA. Stations quit buying it, and agencies did not pay much attention to it anyway. So it went away decades ago. But, like any market, we can get reports just for that one county if we want to. Most time buyers don't.
 
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